244 THROUGH THE BRAZILIAN WILDERNESS 



remaining eight camaradas — there were sixteen in all — 

 were equally divided between our two pairs of lashed canoes. 

 Although our personal baggage was cut down to the limit 

 necessary for health and efficiency, yet on such a trip as 

 ours, where scientific work has to be done and where food 

 for twenty-two men for an unknown period of time has 

 to be carried, it is impossible not to take a good deal of 

 stuff; and the seven dugouts were too heavily laden. 



The paddlers were a strapping set. They were expert 

 river-men and men of the forest, skilled veterans in wilder- 

 ness work. They were lithe as panthers and brawny as 

 bears. They swam like water-dogs. They were equally 

 at home with pole and paddle, with axe and machete; and 

 one was a good cook and others were good men around 

 camp. They looked like pirates in the pictures of Howard 

 Pyle or Maxfield Parrish; one or two of them were pirates, 

 and one worse than a pirate; but most of them were hard- 

 working, willing, and cheerful. They were white, — or, 

 rather, the olive of southern Europe, — black, copper- 

 colored, and of all intermediate shades. In my canoe Luiz 

 the steersman, the headman, was a Matto Grosso negro; 

 Julio the bowsman was from Bahia and of pure Portuguese 

 blood; and the third man, Antonio, was a Parcels Indian. 



The actual surveying of the river was done by Colonel 

 Rondon and Lyra, with Kermit as their assistant. Kermit 

 went first in his little canoe with the sighting-rod, on which 

 two disks, one red and one white, were placed a metre 

 apart. He selected a place which commanded as long 

 vistas as possible up-stream and down, and which there- 

 fore might be at the angle of a bend; landed; cut away 

 the branches which obstructed the view; and set up the 



